Punishment or Catharsis?
by romansilence
Summary: Before reassembling the Trident to destroy the world HG comes to Old City to balance the scales with an old acquaintance. Element of kink


Disclaimer: The characters and background stories of Warehouse 13 and Sanctuary do not belong to me, unfortunately. No copyright infringement is intended, no profit will be made.

Timeline: I apologise for messing up the timeline by a year. For the sake of the story just imagine that HG Wells was de-bronzed in 2008, not 2009 or 2010 as Warehouse canon would dictate.

A/N: Written for the Third Annual Femslash Kink dreamwidth, answer to the prompt: Crossover: Sanctuary / Warehouse13: Helen Magnus / HG Wells, punishment .

**Punishment or Catharsis?**

**by**

**romansilence**

"Doctor Zimmerman, I'm perfectly capable of meeting with this informant on my own, Helen Magnus said neutrally while she checked her tranquiliser gun."

"If you won't take me, take at least Kate with you. She s new, she can use the exercise," Will insisted.

Helen s eyes flashed angrily at him and the ambient room temperature dropped at least a dozen degrees. Helen s voice was still calm, "Miss Freelander, she has more experience in situations like this than you do, Will. I appreciate your concern, but I do not need a nanny, never did, never will."

"I know that, Magnus, but I still propose that we show some caution. It s not every day that we get our information in a telegram," Will said.

Worrying about the way that mysterious meeting had been announced was only a pretence for Will. The real reason why he did not want his boss and friend to go alone was her new-found tendency to recklessness. He feared that in her evident grief over Ashley's death she would go and do something ill-advised, again. He still had not gotten the whole story of her mission in the South-American jungle last month out of her. Will only knew that since Ashley's sacrifice the unflappable Magnus had lost some of her spark.

"I'll have you know that while no longer standard operations procedure there is nothing strange or ominous about using a telegram. James was not the only one to prefer more old-fashioned ways to communicate. Now, if there is nothing else..."

Helen didn t wait for an answer but grabbed the long, black leather coat the Big Guy handed her and walked off. Will followed her, more out of instinct that in the hope to get her to reconsider but the Big Guy stopped him with a slow shake of his head, and he knew Helen Magnus moods better than anyone.

-x-x-x-

Helen had reached the rendez-vous point in record time. She parked the sleek black corvette she used for solitary outings in front of an old hotel that had just recently been slated for demolition to make place for some upscale waterfront condos. She locked the vehicle and walked through the revolving door into the former hotel lobby.

Even in the twilight of late afternoon it had a certain run-down charm that appealed to her. Helen walked in the middle of the room. She didn't look around, she didn't call out. She waited. A smile spread over her face when she felt the sting of a tranquiliser dart on the right side of her neck. While she sank to the floor she wondered what her captor would have had planned for Will or Kate should she have decided to bring reinforcements.

-x-x-x-

When she came to Helen kept her eyes close and her breathing even. She heard the beating of her own heart, slow and steady, and the sound of her blood pumping through her veins. Extending her senses outwards she detected the faint echo of the nearby freeway at rush hour. So, she had not been unconscious for long, good. The sound closest to her, however, was the clicking of heels pacing the room only a few feet away.

Helen took stock of her physical condition and was not surprised to find herself naked and bound to a king-size bed face first. She had expected it; in fact it was the main reason she had insisted on coming alone. Will, Kate or Henry did their best, but they just could not understand.

She tested the strength of the rope spread-eagling her to the bed, not to try to escape but to let her captor know that she had regained consciousness. She heard the heels coming over and someone knelt next to the bed.

"Look at me, Helen. I m very appreciative that you did not bring baby-face or your current bed-warmer though I admit that your taste in young playthings is as always impeccable."

Helen turned her head and gave the dark-haired woman looking at her a bright genuine smile while she studied her facial expression, "Helena. It has been a while. I wanted our reunion to be undisturbed by others and their often misguided protectiveness."

"Oh no, Helen Magnus," the woman shouted and jumped up, "you don t get to look at me like that and talk to me like nothing has happened between us, like you didn t abandon me and left me to rot in the Bronze sector. Bloody Hell, I was supposed to be bronzed for a decade, not for ten decades. You betrayed me, Doctor Magnus, and you will pay. You will pay and then I will make this rotten world pay."

Helen heard the sound of a whip slicing through the air. She had less than half a second to prepare herself, instead the tip of the whip grazed the top of the mattress right in front of her nose. It's intended trajectory diverted by the contact with the sheet, it rebounded and hit the inside of Helen's upper arm, immediately creating a bloody welt.

She hissed at the unexpected pain and said, "You're evidently out of practice, Helena Wells, or can you repeat that move on the other side? I would hate to be lopsided."

Helena didn t take her captive s bait. The whip hit Helen s back, slicing a fiery line from her right shoulder to her left hip. That was the pain she had expected and so she only reacted with a forced exhale. Helen heard Helena switch hands. Moments later a second line crossed the first. She focused for a moment, surprised that Helena had not yet drawn blood.

When the third stroke hit slightly above the first she spared a brief appreciative thought for Helena's despite her earlier mocking words impressive mastery of the single tail whip. Then she abandoned herself to the pain.

She allowed her eyes to close and recalled the expression on Ashley's face before she teleported to her death. She no longer heard the hissing whistle of the whip slicing through the air before marking her skin or the snapping sound when its tip breached the sound barrier. Helen only heard Ashley's half whispered plea, if to save her or to forgive her Helen would never know, that one last word, Mum . It had burned itself in her soul. It haunted her in her nightmares. It echoed through her mind by day. It got louder with every stroke until it filled her whole being, until she cried out in anguish, a long, protracted, tortured wail liable to call every Banshee in a hundred miles radius to their current location.

Her body arched towards the next couple of strokes as far as her restraints allowed. Tears were running down her face, thick drops in a continuous stream, tears she had not allowed herself to shed before until the beating suddenly stopped.

Helen was peripherally aware of the whip hitting the hardwood floor, the metal ends of Helena's heels coming closer. She felt the shift of the mattress when Helena sat down and the slight tremor in Helena s hand touching her face. Helen opened her eyes and turned her head to look at Helena.

"I'm sorry, she said.

"You should be, you betrayed me, Helen. Being bronzed, you're aware of the passage of time, you're alone with your thoughts and your feelings, there is no way to hide or to run. It's the worst punishment one could ever imagine, and you left me to suffer it for more than a hundred years.

Helen didn't try to defend herself. She was not ready, and Helena was not ready. Helena still had a lot of anger and pain to let out, and Helen didn't want the punishment to end, not yet. She needed more, and she needed it from Helena. Helena was the only person really able to really understand her.

"There is nothing I could say that would make your pain go away, Helena," Helen s words were spoken softly and full of regret and pain but Helena was still too hurt to hear it.

"You re right, Helen, there is nothing you can say, but you can pay."

Helena jumped up and retrieved the whip. She now stood at the side of the bed and Helen could see her every movement, the elegant arch of her back when she raised her arm and let the whip fly and crack inches over Helen's back without touching. A flick of the wrist made the long tail change trajectory in mid-flight and hit her square on the fleshiest part of her buttocks.

Helen bit her lower lip to keep from crying out, her gaze trained on Helena's fluid, economical movements. A second, third and fourth lash sliced in her backside. She distractedly thought that sitting down or leaning against something would be quite painful the next few days, but with the fifth stroke she once again focused on the pain that now enveloped her whole body.

She waited for Ashley's mournful expression to appear before her mind's eye but even closing her eyes, shutting out the reality of the bed and the whip and her disciplinarian didn't bring it forth this time. So, Helen let her eyelids flutter open and kept her gaze on Helena, on her torturer, her saviour. That was another reason she had not brought anyone with her; they wouldn't understand her need to atone, not only for having failed her only child but also for secretly cheering on John and Nikola when they had hunted down the Cabal and for having longed to go with them, kill with them, do what Helena had done more than a century ago. Then Helen had not understood that need for vengeance. She did now.

No, Will would not understand, despite his extensive psychological training. He would label it, explain it, try to talk her out of it, but he would not understand. Under his sometimes cynical front he was too innocent, guileless and optimistic to really understand that even now, under Helena s whip, basically writhing in pain she could breathe easier than she had in months.

Helena's face and neck were shining in perspiration. She was beautiful, she always had been even the last time she had seen her, before Helena had given herself up to the Warehouse agents having chased her and agreed to be bronzed. Now, Helen thought, there was a new quality to her beauty, something Helen could not easily define. Helen stared at Helena's eyes, at the anger and dark passion on her face. She no longer felt the single lashes and would not have been able to tell where they landed. Helen only saw Helena's smouldering eyes and something inside of her clicked as if falling in place for the first time in far too long.

Helen felt her nipples harden against the mattress. She pushed out her ass, greeting every stroke. She felt herself getting wet and stiffened at the realisation, that had definitively not been in her plans. Never before had her body reacted this way; her body had usually very clear limits concerning the amount of pain it interpreted as still pleasurable. Those limits had been surpassed with the first stroke hitting her back. Her sudden arousal was disconcerting but it was also too strong to be denied, and Helen was not in the habit of lying to herself and not name things for what they were.

Her clitoris was throbbing. Her breathing was ragged. Her inner muscles clenched around nothing. Helen lost herself in those sensations and was oblivious to the whip once again falling to the floor. She wasn't aware of her legs being freed from their restraints. She didn t feel the mattress shifting under Helena's weight or her legs being pushed apart. All she felt was her need, the burning desire coursing through her veins, through her whole being, the pain engulfing her body, blazing fire on her passionate want.

Helen's eyes widened in shock when two strong hands grabbed her hips and pulled her upwards on her knees. A heartbeat later something long and hard was roughly thrust deep into her folds. She cried out, as much in surprise as in pain. The hard phallus filled her, her back screamed, her buttocks were burning. She felt the heat of another human being behind her, skin on skin. She smelled Helena's arousal, recognised it, in essence unchanged after more than a century.

She allowed herself to enjoy what undoubtedly was meant as humiliation.

Helena's right hand left Helen's hip while the other still held her steady. Her fingertips slid along Helen's side, paused at the soft flesh of her breasts. A fingernail retraced the very first whip mark and not in a playful way. Helen s instincts told her to press herself up on her hands to somehow shake off the painful touch but she kept her face and shoulders pressed against the mattress, and allowed herself nothing more but groans and growls.

Helena changed hands, the whole time keeping up her hard, rhythmical thrusts, smacking her own centre and lower stomach against Helen's welted butt cheeks. When Helena's left index finger pressed along the line of the second lash mark Helen's groan turned into a moan and she instinctively tried to push her behind towards the thrusts.

Helena didn t allow that. She quickly took hold of Helen s hips, pushed the phallus in as deeply as possible and held them both still. Helen ceased her efforts immediately. Her heart was thundering in her throat, but she stayed still and tried to relax as best as she could with one part of her mind screaming in physical pain and the other in pent-up passion and arousal.

Helen's focus slowly widened to include the woman kneeling behind her; the comparatively cool sensation of Helena s hands on her hips, holding her firmly, Helena's nether curls tickling the apex of Helen s legs, the outside of Helen's thighs touching the inside of hers, Helena's breathing, fast and short breaths which, Helen knew from experience, were a sure sign of her arousal.

That typical scent that was so uniquely Helena George Wells was almost overwhelming in its intensity. If Helen's own need had not been as burningly dominant in her thoughts and mind she would have given her captor a triumphant grin. As it was she waited as patiently as she could for Helena to decide on her next course of action.

Helena's thumbs began to caress the sides of the small of Helen's back, the small gap between the lowest marks on Helen s back and the highest on her buttocks. Helen wriggled a tiny bit in appreciation and moaned at the comforting, caring sensation that spread through her hurting body from the simple motion. The movement suddenly and abruptly stopped. A strong grip on both sided pulled Helen even closer until the base of the phallus almost touched Helen's clitoris, almost.

"You, Helen Magnus, are still an extremely exasperating woman. How am I supposed to stay angry at you at such a display of wantonness and devotion? How am I supposed to punish you when all I want is to fuck you until you cry out my name?"

Helen's only answer to Helena's rhetorical question was another deep, throaty, needy moan.

"You are infuriating, Doctor Magnus, absolutely infuriating," the smile on her face and the gentleness in her voice contradicted Helena's harsh words.

The combination sent a bolt of arousal to Helen's centre. It thrilled her in a way that would have intensified her need and the throbbing in her clit if that had been at all possible. Helen felt as if she would burst in a thousand pieces any moment now.

She started to tremble when Helena's voice changed from gentle to commanding, "I will now remove my hands from your hips, Doctor. You will continue to push back against me, my artificial member buried deep inside of you. You will not thrust or jerk. You will simply take what I choose to give. I will make your body feel what being bronzed did to my mind. I can smell your arousal, but you will not allow yourself an orgasm without my permission. Do you understand, Helen?"

Helen nodded, but given her position it was not a very effective way of communicating. She swallowed hard and managed to say, "Yes, Helena, I understand."

Helena removed her hands, and despite Helena's cock still filling her Helen suddenly felt abandoned, empty, lost. Seconds crawled by as if they were minutes, even hours. Was Helena testing her? Should she do anything?, Helen asked herself but before her desire-muddled brain came up with an answer fiery hot pain shot from the centre of her back right between her legs.

She instinctively pushed harder against Helena and the phallus. Her heart beat in her throat like a fast drum. Helena's thumbs pressed down on the point where the first and second whip mark crossed. Helen was on fire, ablaze with pain and need, blending together, one no longer distinguishable from the other. Helen no longer thought, she only felt and when the pressure on her back, Helena's thumbs drawing small circles on Helen's welted skin, when that suddenly was gone she felt loss, fear. She wanted to beg, beg Helena to touch her again, to use her nails on the marks she had made, to make her bleed, to make her feel

Then Helena moved. She bent forward and sneaked her arms around Helen s torso. She pulled her up as far as the restraints around Helen's wrists allowed and ordered her to brace herself. Her palms slid up to Helen s breasts, thumbs and index fingers found the rock hard nipples. The change in position had also changed the angle of the hard rod filling her. It now pressed against her love spot.

"Dear Lord, Helena!"

Helena began to move her hips, tiny movements, circular movements that let the phallus rub over her spot, driving her arousal to an impossible high. She wanted to come so badly, it hurt more than her tortured body. She wanted nothing more than her release but she couldn t: She needed Helena s permission and burst out,

"Helena Wells, damn you, quit playing around."

Helena chuckled and increased the pressure on Helen's right nipple but she also let her left hand slide down between Helen's legs. She squeezed Helen's engorged clit. She flicked it and felt the tremor rushing immediately through Helen's whole body.

"Come for me, my doctor, give me your orgasm. Squeeze that member inside of you, squeeze it hard enough to make me feel it where it counts, Helen."

The urgency of Helena's words unmasked her own need. The sudden pressure on Helena's clit from the base of the phallus sent her over the edge, she lost her balance, deep in the throes of her own orgasm and collapsed on top of Helen. Helen cried out at the pain and with a new orgasm, propelling her to a seldom felt high and then into the oblivion of unconsciousness.

-x-x-x-

Helen was surprised to find herself free from her restraints when she came to again. She was more surprised to feel eyes on her. The cynical part of her had expected Helena to be gone. Helen turned around, valiantly ignoring the throbbing pain, and looked into Helena's eyes, the anger and pain gone for the moment. Helena was lying on her side, propped up on an elbow, a half stunned, half worried expression on her face.

"Welcome back, my doctor. You had me worried there for a moment with your impression of a delicate Victorian flower."

"People nowadays have truly ridiculous notions about life in the Victorian era, and there's a first for everything, Helena. You can now add being the first person to make Helen Magnus pass out from bliss to the list of your achievements. Thank you, Helena. You have no idea how much I needed what you gave me. I sincerely regret that I refused to do the same to you when you asked me all those years ago."

"What are you talking about, Helen?" Helena asked with confusion evident on her face.

"It s a long story, Helena. Are you willing to give me the benefit of doubt and listen without prejudice? Please."

"I will listen, I owe you that much but my mind is already made up," Helena answered.

"When you mentioned the Ptenoflexus Catyra in the telegram I knew that it only could be from you. I had only learned a few days earlier that you were still alive and once again working for the Warehouse."

"Do not lie to me, Helen Magnus. You knew exactly where I was and you and the Regents left me to rot in the Bronze sector."

"I never lied to you, Helena, and I have no reason to start now. I thought you dead for almost a hundred years, Helena, up until five days ago when a general security warning landed on my desk, and a request for assistance in apprehending a very dangerous rogue Warehouse agent. There was a photo attached and I nearly fainted when I recognised you. I did some research and found out all about your recent history at the Warehouse from the moment that other former agent, MacPhearson, had you de-bronzed to the way you left Warehouse 2 and your colleagues. I knew that there was a strong possibility that sooner or later you would call on me. I would have preferred for that to take place at the Sanctuary but your way might have been better."

"Let's get back to my presumed death, Doctor Magnus. You do not really expect me to believe one word of that, do you? You had the resources and the contacts to have me de-bronzed at any time, but you chose not to. You kept me locked up in a place more cruel and vile than any of the secure cells in which you keep the dangerous Abnormals, Helen. Why should I believe even a single word you say?"

"Listen to what your heart tells you, Helena, just hear me out. A few years before World War I the British government was hell-bent on extending their control into areas they had so far left alone, namely the Sanctuary and the Warehouse. In 1908 the Prime Minister at the behest of the King blackmailed James me and the others of the Five to work with them. They promised funds, immunity for crimes committed and the full cooperation of any government and military agency."

Helena's eyes widened at Helen's surprising admission. In the couple of years they had been together Helen had been fiercely independent. If she only suspected someone of wanting to influence her unduly or to order her around she immediately had ended their association with the Sanctuary, regardless of their wealth or social standing.

"At the time we all thought that we didn't have a choice, and I will always regret what I was forced to do then. Now, I know better and there s no fear of interference from any single government hanging over the Sanctuary's head, but let s get back to the topic at hand. After that the Council of Regents decided that it would be best to relocate the Warehouse to spare the British government the temptation of actually using some of the more dangerous artefacts for their own ends. They decided on a remote part of North America and began to ship out artefacts in 1910, including the inmates of the Bronze Sector."

"One of the cargo ships sank in a part of the Atlantic ocean too deep for even the Merfolk to reach, at least that's what I was told. Now, I have my doubts. I still have the copies of the cargo manifest the High-Regent at the time gave me with his condolences for my loss. Your name was on that list together with about a third of the Bronze sector inhabitants at the time. I thought you were dead."

Helena abruptly sat up and Helen followed suite, closing her hands over Helena's and willing away the new waves of pain the sudden movement sent through her body.

"Why? What happened? Helena asked. Was it just a fluke, a loading error? Was it intentional? Who would want to do something like that?"

"I do not know, but I'm making inquiries and I sent another copy of the ship's manifest to Mrs. Fredericks. She told me that Warehouse 13 has no records of a sunken ship. The Regents at the time must have erased all documentation concerning the ship you supposedly were on. That invites the speculation that it never sank," Helen answered.

"You think that someone misdirected the ship, took selected artefacts, maybe even a lot of them and arranged for the rest to be put back together with the artefacts from the other ship or ships without anyone being the wiser," Helena s eyes sparkled with intellectual curiosity.

!It's just a hypothesis at the moment, Helena. We'll find out. Mrs. Fredericks will keep me informed and as I said I'm doing some research of my own. She and I have developed a good working relationship over the years. She is kind enough to send me copies of the more interesting reports but lately I didn t read them. I could have found out about your de-bronzing months ago."

Helena's eyes had widened considerably. Suddenly her whole body tensed up and Helen had to really hold onto her hands to keep her from fleeing or pacing. There once again was pain in her eyes but of a completely different quality than what Helen had seen before.

Y"ou didn t abandon me! You didn t! And I hurt you, I beat you. How can you sit here and hold my hands? You should have me bronzed again just for whipping you. You should take me into custody now and let the Regents deal with me," Helena said, her voice reflecting wonder and guilt.

I will do no such thing, Helena George Wells. Though I did not abandon you, I still let you down, Helena. I deserved what you gave me and I also needed it," Helen just barely kept herself from saying that she also might need a repeat performance in the future when the pain in her heart and the hole in her soul from losing Ashley once again became too overwhelmingly strong.

"You wanted me to whip you?"

"In a way, yes, I did. I knew coming here that something like that was probable to happen, but I also knew that you would do nothing that would permanently harm me. I know you, Helena George Wells. I know that you're a good person."

"A good person? Now, Helen's hold on Helena's hands was not enough to keep her from jumping up. Are you out of your mind, Helen? A good person would not whip and rape her once best friend and first lover. A good person would not leave her colleague and her current lover in a death-trap of a pyramid in the Egyptian desert. A good person would not have torn the men who killed her child to shreds and enjoyed it. A good person, Helen Magnus, would not try to reassemble the Minoan Trident to destroy all human life on Earth. You said it yourself all those years ago, my doctor, I turned into a monster."

Helen also stood up from the bed and stopped Helena's pacing and ranting by standing in her way, embracing her and sealing her lips with a kiss.

"You are not a monster, Helena, and you never were. I was shocked when I found you with the remains of Christina's murderers." Helena tried to squirm out of Helen's arms, No, please, listen to me. The only monsters in that basement were the men you executed. They killed and raped a woman and a defenceless child; they deserved to die, and even then I wanted to see them die, on the gallows."

"What I said to you was wrong, wrong and ignorant. I didn't know then. I failed you when I didn't consent to do what you asked me to after the Time Machine had failed. You wanted me to make you feel something beyond Christina's loss. You wanted me to give you enough physical pain to push the other pain aside, at least for a while. I failed you because I was too arrogant and to self-centred to understand what you went through.

"Then I thought that I knew what it means to love and to lose that love because of my history with John. I was so clueless. I belittled what you were going through, and that is why I will always owe you, Helena. I failed you when you needed me most, but you are there for me."

Helen let go of Helena and turned around suddenly unable to continue to look at the other woman. She took a step towards the bed but Helena stepped up from behind and pulled Helen s back against her own body.

"How long?" She asked.

"Four months and seventeen days."

"You carried John's child to term."

"Her name was Ashley. She was twenty-three when she was killed. I couldn t protect her and she died protecting me."

"Did you get her killer?"

"John and Nikola did. The first week after her death I was in shock, in denial. I could not sleep or eat and was obsessed with the idea to bring her back. I even had to be sedated," Helen's voice was toneless, devoid of life.

"And when you came to again you attended her funeral and stopped feeling anything but pain and anger," Helena said with sadness.

"Memorial service. There was no body. I couldn t even cry for her, Hel."

"I know, my doctor."

Helena held Helen tighter, pressing her front against Helen s welted back and buttocks.

"Fuck me, Hel. Make me feel."

The arms around her middle lifted Helen off her feet and before she knew how she cried out when she landed back first on the mattress, "Put your hands over your head, Helen, and keep your eyes on me. I want you to look at me the whole time."

Helena settled herself between Helen s legs. For at least half a minute they just stared at each other. Helena then started to caress the sides of Helen's thighs, gently, slowly.

"Please, Helena, fuck me."

Helena removed her hands and signalled Helen with a finger to her lips that she should stay quiet. They once again stared at each other until Helen acquiesced to Helena's silent demand with a slow nod. Helena returned her hands to the outside of Helen's thigh and saw the first signs of wetness between her legs.

Helena suppressed a smile at Helen s responsiveness. There obviously were things that had not changed during the last century. Helena was tempted to build up Helen's arousal slowly, to make her orgasm just from being caressed and stroked, but Helen didn t need gentle at the moment, that much Helena knew. Helen needed hard and fast and painful. Still, a bit more anticipation would not hurt things any.

After a few more minutes Helen's nipples hardened and Helena saw that as a sign that it was time for the next step. She put one hand on Helen's lower stomach and entered her with three fingers of the other. Helena began to pump in and out and for the first dozen thrusts it was a surprisingly tight fit considering the girth of the dildo Helen had taken earlier. As soon as possible she added her fourth finger, internally relieved that Helen's natural lubrication kept up with the demands she made on her body.

Helena kept on thrusting, deep and hard and fast. Helen squirmed under the hand holding her down and still. She bucked against it and with the next heartbeat Helena removed two of her fingers though she kept the pace up. Helen opened her mouth to protest but decided against it when she saw the determination in Helena's eyes. She stopped moving her hips and settled down. Helena rewarded her with a short flick of the clit that made her gasp. When Helena was sure that Helen had learned her lesson she once again added the two fingers and was immediately engulfed by the warm, moist walls of Helen's centre.

Helena's movements were not simple thrusting. They were meant to slowly widen Helen s entrance. When she was able to take Helena's fingers up to the knuckles and stay well lubricated it was time for the next step. Helena tucked her thumb in, made her hand as long and small as possible and rammed it deeply into Helen's vagina. Helen cried out in pain, her back arched up, her hands left her position beside her head and grabbed the sheet at her side, only her hips stayed still. Her heels pressed hard into the mattress. Helena closed her hand to a fist inside of her and started to thrust, slowly and deeply.

Pain and pleasure blended together faster than at their earlier encounter. Helen felt the urge to close her eyes to revel in the sensation, but Helena seemed to read her mind, "No, Helen, keep looking at me and listen to me, listen with your heart, not your head."

The colour of Helena's eyes had changed to a dark blue and the intensity of her gaze threatened to swallow Helen whole.

Y!ou are alive, Helen Magnus," she said. "You will not let the pain and anger win.

Helena angled her other hand to first press against and then roll Helen s clit between her thumb and index finger.

"You are alive, Helen. Ashley does not want you to stop feeling and loving."

A first tear ran down Helen's face.

"You are alive, Helen. Ashley wants you to live your life."

Her gaze still trained on Helena, Helen's tears now fell freely but Helena wanted more than just tears, so she kept up her rhythm and her words.

"You are alive, my Doctor. Look past the hole in your heart and your soul."

Helen gasped and sobbed simultaneously. Her inner walls clenched around Helena's fist, massaging it in her own way, at the brink of an orgasm.

"You are alive, my doctor. Ashley wants you to be happy again. You are alive. Don t throw it away. You are alive."

Helen came, in an explosion of sexual need and pain and guilt and loss and love and hurt and anguish and bliss. This time she didn t faint. She kept looking at Helena who let her ride out her orgasm before she pulled her hand out as gently as possible. She crawled towards the head of the bed and pulled the still crying Helen in her arms.

"Thank you, Helena," Helen said a few minutes after her tears had subsided.

"You are welcome, my doctor," Helena answered.

She kept Helen firmly anchored in her embrace and used her other hand to open the drawer of the nightstand. She removed Helen's cell phone and dialled a number from memory. It was picked up at the third ring and Helena held the phone in a way for Helen to listen in on the call.

"Leena's Bed and Breakfast. What can I do for you?"

It's Helena, Leena."

"Helena, are you alright? We re all worried."

"I'm fine, or at least I will be in time. You should not be worried, you should be pissed after the stunt I pulled in Egypt, but that s not why I called. Listen, please. I took only one artefact from Warehouse 2, the shaft of the Minoan Trident. Reunited with its upper part it can create earthquakes and tidal waves and other unpleasant natural disasters. Artie and the others will find it in New York, camouflaged as a broom in the kitchen closet of an apartment I rented under the name of Kate Ryan. Here's the address."

Helena rattled off an address and repeated it more slowly to give Leena a chance to write it down.

"Please, come back to us, Helena. Come back home. We need you. Myka needs you. I fear she could do something rash soon."

"I doubt that Myka or anyone else would want to see me back, Leena, and I know that Artie would like nothing more than to bronze me again. One day I will come back to make amends but for now I need time. Tell Myka that I love her."

Helena ended the call and Helen pulled her into a long hug and kissed the side of her temple. They stayed in comfortable silence for a long time and when Helen's tears had completely dried she asked, "Will you let me help, my Hel?"

"If you let me help, my doctor, and if you promise that you will not pressure me for explanations for my actions until I m ready to talk to you."

"You have my word, Hele..."

-x-x-x-

At that moment the door burst open or rather was kicked in. Will and Kate stormed in with their weapons drawn. Helena's eyes widened in surprise and she started to laugh.

Helen sat up, seemingly oblivious to her nakedness, "Will, Kate, please be so kind as to put your guns away. Helena is a dear friend and will be our guest at the Sanctuary. Wait outside, please. We will be with you shortly."

Will automatically walked backwards and collided with the doorjamb, but Kate was not as easily cowed, "Are you sure that you re alright, Doc?"

"Quite sure, Kate. Thank you for your concern. If you would now excuse yourself"

Kate turned around and closed the door. Helena burst out laughing. Helen tried to keep her face impassive when she said, "That sure was not the way I wanted to contribute to young Will Zimmerman's education."

That made Helena only laugh harder, "Only you, Helen Magnus, can act and sound like a proper Victorian lady while sitting naked on a bed. For a moment I thought baby face's eyes would pop out of his head; your young woman, however, seemed very appreciative of the sight and she sure didn't look at me.

"Kate is but a child, Helena, barely older than Ashley. It would put a whole new dimension on the word cradle robber. Besides, she is not interested in me."

"Good Lord, are you still so blind to the feelings you inspire in others? If you want her for more than just a tryst between the sheets make the first step."

"A hundred years, and you re still giving me relationship advise; some things really don't change," Helen answered with a smile.

Helena bent forward and gave Helen a quick kiss on the lips, "You re right, doctor, my doctor, some things do not change. You are still the most prude hedonist I have ever met, and after having fallen in love with Myka that means a lot."

Helen chuckled, "I'm sure, my Hel, that you quickly cured her of any remnants of shyness she might have possessed after your first time in her bed."

"What can I tell, my doctor? I had a very good and inspiring teacher, even though she sometimes can be a prude."

**The End**

4


End file.
